Monthly Archives: November 2012

I know people will want to take me out for saying this, and I will admit, the Grand Canyon is not just a big hole in the ground, it is a magnificent hole in the ground, but once you get beyond that initial amazement, there’s just not much else there.

There are also views like this creepy dead tree with the death birds in it.

We went twice. The first time it rained. We had some time in between showers to see the magnificent hole, and I thought perhaps we had missed something because of the rain. So, I thought we should go back, and we did. This time with Benjamin when he was seven.

Really, this is all there is.

It was fun to see Benjamin run up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and announce to me, “Mom, you’ll want to get a picture of this!” and it was fun to see the couple doing the marriage proposal. The woman being proposed to started crying and loudly asking her proposer if he was just joking and hitting him in case he was.

One of the squirrels that you are not allowed to feed, but probably will anyway.

But other than some impromptu shows like that, you get your panoramic shots, you get some very expensive food, and hike up to the most boring “museum” ever. There are the squirrels that you can illegally feed, which might, according to the signs, bite you. Everyone there, however, is feeding the squirrels and probably every other kind of wildlife they see.

The first time we went, just me and Terry, we camped outside the park in the Kaibab National Forest since it was free unlike the park. It was an odd forest, at least to me, different than I was used to in Arkansas. There was no underbrush. It was mostly coniferous trees and the needles covering the ground had kept anything from growing. So, what this means is that if you have to go to the bathroom out there (which of course you will), there is no cover whatsoever for you when one of the many sightseeing planes flies over. I know I gave a little show to a group of tourists.

It always astounds me that the Grand Canyon shows up on those lists of best parks and best places to go and bucket lists. Why? A friend told me she had only seen the Grand Canyon from an airplane, and I told her that was all she needed.